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Chapter Fifteen

“This is what Theron really does?” Marcus asked Lewis. “He’s not a bounty hunter for skips? He’s a magical warrior who rescues kidnapped Fae for his king?”

“Yeah, pretty much.” Lewis said, not bothering to camouflage his smugness.

They were sitting at the table, studying the drawings Marcus barely remembered making. Less than one minute ago, Dane and half the room had just disappeared. Lewis seemed calm about it, so Marcus tried not to freak out. Much.

Lewis set down a drawing to smile at him. “But honestly, he’s only rescued a teenage werewolf since we’ve been together. I don’t think you realize how big of a deal this is.”

“Oh no,” Marcus said, stretching back in the chair. “I get it.”

At least he thought he did.

A tall, intimidating man with perfect blond hair and a goatee reported at the door and Captain Leonides greeted him with the name “Briggs.” Marcus tried to listen to what they said, but Lewis discreetly whispered to him the man was head of security on the Pride and had once been a guard for Poseidon.

What the hell was he going to see next?

The captain issued Briggs a few orders and he left, leaving the captain with Marcus, Lewis, and the two Fae lords guarding the door. Kevin and Jacob didn’t have their mates, which meant they didn’t have their full magical power—or so Marcus understood it—therefore they’d been ordered to stay behind. Perhaps they never would find their mates if a vampire had unknowingly turned them. For a supposedly unbreakable bond, Marcus was learning there was more than one way to break one.

A thought that made his entire body hurt.

Until the memory of Dane seeking comfort in Marcus’s arms played through his mind. Grateful Dane had turned to him and happy to be there for Dane to lean on, he didn’t want to imagine the kind of PTSD Dane must suffer from.

Was it no wonder he spoke so detached about things, even things that hurt Marcus? He shouldn’t judge Dane’s moods so unfairly, not after everything he’d endured.

Marcus had been both physically and emotionally abused by his father—though this new information he’d gleaned about the man may lead him toward changing some of his perspective. Yet Marcus had also been shown love, escaped the pain in the arms of his mother and twin. He’d had more happy days than bad. All the shitty days in Marcus’s life could not compare to the decades of torture Dane had suffered. Therefore Dane’s aversion to humans made complete, logical sense. But the heart was not known for logic. Considering he’d already fallen hard for the other man, swallowing prejudice and anger directed at him wasn’t easy.

Could they work through this issue together? Dane seemed to want to try. And despite everything, Marcus did too.

“So you have magic,” Lewis said. “I’m kinda jealous.”

“Well, you slept with a vampire,” Marcus quipped, trying to get out of his head—an impossible task since yesterday. “Maybe I’m jealous.”

When Kevin and Jacob glanced over, Lewis quickly placed both hands over Marcus’s mouth. “Shh! And that’s not what happened.”

Laughing, Marcus brushed Lewis’s hands away then gestured around. “We got nowhere to go, so fill me in.”

Then Lewis launched into a tale about magical grimoires, realistic dreams, an orchard, and a young monk being seduced by a vampire and the magi who tried to save him.

“So you’re Brother Liam?”

“Yup. Reincarnated and at your service.”

“And Theron was in a book?” Marcus clarified. It’s all so surreal. “For hundreds of years?”

“Yes, when I was gutted by the vampire Danior the Devil—aka D.A. Noire—I was dying. Theron’s grandmother knew I was turning into a vampire and that would break our soul bind. She made us bind our blood then, um... she cut off my head to stop me from turning and locked Theron in her grimoire until I was reborn.”

“What the fuck?”

“Yeah, that’s some real bullshit, right? I had no memory of anything until stuff returned to me in dreams my first day on the Pride. Then when Kendra and I were shopping in St. Martin I found the grimoire and Brother Liam’s—my rosary. I knew deep in my soul I had to have it. Kind of like your obsession with finding Dane. Your souls were trying to unite.”

“Not his,” Marcus said glumly.

Lewis placed a hand on his arm. “Theron told me Dane was tortured by his jailers. He doesn’t know what they did, but you guys are strangers. Theron and I already knew each other, even though I had to remember it all first. I thought everything was a dream until Theron appeared in my suite.”

“He just walked in?” Marcus asked, both interested in his friend’s tale and wanting to forget his own.

“No, I accidentally or maybe on purpose subconsciously read the spell his grandmother put in the book and poof. He appeared in a burst of light. It was totally trippy. I’d just dreamed of the two of us making love, then suddenly there he was. For reals. We didn’t know how we were separated until Adam cast a spell so we could remember.”

“Adam, the bartender?”

“Fire wizard.”

Marcus nodded, recalling Dane saying something to that effect. Hadn’t Marcus drawn him as a wizard with a staff of flames and a dragon flying above?

Unreal.

“Just give it time with Dane. Get to know each other. I know it will work out,” Lewis insisted. “I mean, your soul mates.”

Marcus wanted to have his friend’s faith, but he’d never been a hopeless romantic. A hapless fool chasing a man hiding from him, perhaps. But not a pie-eyed hopeful romantic. Life had left him far too logical and cynical. Which was why it had been so out of character for him to obsess over Dane.

Stuck in a swimming cloud of dark ruminations, Marcus wasn’t prepared when the rescue team began to teleport back into the conference room.He and Lewis leaped from their chairs to give them space.

First to arrive was a dark red Fae—were they all so gigantic in their true forms?—cradling a tiny woman with barely visible purple streaks in her dirty hair. The unconscious Fae reminded Marcus of Penelope and Keenan. She must be the water sprite King Raoul mentioned.

“Well, that sure was faster than I expected,” Lewis remarked while Marcus felt like it had been a lifetime.

“We need Darrius and Linda,” the captain demanded, swiftly approaching the red Fae and taking the injured woman.

In the blink of an eye, the Fae Lord morphed back into an auburn-haired woman. “They are all Fae, captain,” she reported, face bright with elation. “One is a Fae Lord.”

Kevin popped out of the room and within a moment, reappeared just as the room broke out in chaos. Two more rescued fairies—who Dane had helped Marcus draw on papers still littering the table—were teleported into the room by the lords who’d gone on the rescue mission. Two were silvery in color, the other also dark red. All three were huge, and two held injured Fae in their arms. A heartbeat later a poison green Fae arrived. Then Darrius popped back into the room along with a woman with long, grey-streaked brown hair tied back in a pony tail. Probably Linda, since she carried a leather satchel reminiscent of an old-fashioned doctor’s bag.

All this teleporting in and out of the room was trippy as hell!

As if he were coordinating a wedding, Kevin began issuing orders. “Take these drawings and put them in the captain’s office,” he instructed Jacob, and the Fae quickly obeyed. “Why is this table still here?” With a wave of his hand, the table and chairs just fucking disappeared. “Everyone else, get back and give them space! Beds, we need beds!”

Lewis gripped Marcus’s arm and they pressed against a wall in the corner, hoping to be out of the way. The captain didn’t seem to mind the bossy Fae conjuring beds as he busied himself checking the pulses of each rescued Fae, muttering spells or words of comfort, Marcus had no clue. Everything was fast and hectic, but seemed in sync.

“Are they alive?” Darrius demanded as he approached the one with purple in her hair.

“Barely,” Linda muttered after checking a pulse.

Potions were administered, hands waved over bodies and words were chanted, IVs hooked to arms, the healing arts both unusual and expected. The rescuers—now back in their more human forms—stood back stoically staring at their brethren who’d been carefully laid out on the perfectly sized beds Kevin had conjured.

Nervous fear itched at the back of Marcus’s mind. “Where’s Dane?”

“And Theron,” Lewis added.

Needing the support, Marcus reached out and took Lewis’s hand and squeezed. “They’re going to be fine, right?”

Before Lewis could answer, Dane appeared in his glorious, ebony true form. Marcus would recognize him anywhere, and in any form, a realization that surprised him. But a whip of unfounded jealousy struck him hard, disliking other people seeing him like this. He squashed it down as Dane returned to his petit form just as Theron, and the biggest of all the Fae—gleaming white, wearing a giant crown, and no doubt the king—teleported into the room. Raoul held a filthy naked man in his huge arms, as if he were something unspeakably precious.

“Is that Prince Loren?” Kevin shouted, eyes wide. “We need another bed! Somebody get a damn bed!” He seemed too shocked to conjure one.

“Your brother?” the captain exclaimed, rushing forward.

The king waved his hand and a bed appeared. The once conference room now resembled a triage unit. Marcus glanced at Dane, but the man’s gaze, like everyone else’s, had locked on the last of the rescued Fae, everyone seeming oblivious to Marcus huddled in the back holding hands with Lewis.

“Rest him here, erasti,” the captain insisted, stepping aside so the giant white Fae king could lay the man down. When the king returned to his more human form, both husbands’ eyes watered as they shared a rejoicing embrace.

“All this time I thought he was gone,” Raoul muttered against his husband’s broad chest. “Where has he been all these centuries?”

“He’s been a prisoner for centuries?” Lewis whispered to Marcus. “That’s some bullshit.”

Suddenly the gift that cursed his father, had been revered by his grandfather, and then laid unknowingly upon his own mantle felt too overwhelming. Marcus was a conduit to the spirit world. The sketches he’d drawn with the help of his Fae soul mate had rescued four imprisoned magical beings, including a prince who’d been held captive for centuries.

How was any of this possible?

Marcus’s heart began to race and he wiped his brow, only to find it drenched in sweat, his cheeks wet with tears. He leaned against the wall and sank to the floor hugging his knees to his chest.

Lewis looked down at him. “Are you okay, big guy?”

“Is this real?” Marcus breathed, heart racing.

Dane had told him about Keenan and the teenage werewolf, but his personal involvement and the repercussions hadn’t felt real until this exact moment.

Shaking his head, he watched the chaos of all of the people in the room, hovering over the newly discovered prince and the three barely conscious small people.

People rescued because of a spirit connection Marcus never knew he possessed.

Dane turned to him and those lilac eyes captured his, making his heartrate calm. Helpless, Marcus reached out a hand and gratitude the likes of which he’d never known filled him when Dane took two steps forward and clasped his hand, slipping to the ground to sit beside him.

“Are you well?” Dane questioned, voice as calm and as impassive as ever.

“These people were held prisoner,” he clarified. “Like you?”

Dane’s face remained stoic as he nodded. “I believe it was the same vicious group. I recognized the warlock magic. While the king freed Prince Loren, Theron and I dispatched the bastard humans who were there. Now those men can no longer harm our people. Theron kept one alive for questioning. We hope to get answers.”

“Lovely,” Lewis muttered. “My fiancé, the murderer.”

“No. A bringer of justice,” Dane countered, eyes on Marcus. “Those people deserved worse than a swift death.”

Hand trembling, Marcus cupped Dane’s face, marveling how his large hand perfectly encased his cheek. He stroked a thumb over Dane’s cheekbone. What he’d once assumed to be indifference he now realized was incredible strength. “I’m so sorry about what happened to you,” he whispered. “If I could do anything to make it go away, I would.”

Dane’s eyelids fell, dark lashes feathering across pale cheeks. He pressed into Marcus’s hand, then gripped his wrist in return. “I wish you could too.”

Then, miracles of miracles, Dane fell into his arms. They held each other close as the chaos around them ensued.

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